I'm going to be a programmer!

Well, hopefully that’s the plan once I finish my three year course for Computer Programming and Analysis.

After finishing highschool, I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I just went to work. Over the last, almost 6 years I’ve worked different jobs and always knew that I wanted to go back. This year, I decided that I’ll do something with computers since it’s something I’m passionate about. After talking with a friend of mine who is already in the field, I decided that it’d be perfect for me. I always enjoy problem solving and coming up with new ideas so the idea of being able to do that with computers made it an easy choice.

I applied for the Computer Programming and Analysis course at Seneca College @ York in Toronto and got in so next week I’ll be on my way to becoming a programmer. The awesome thing about this program is that it has co-op. Which will allow me to work two different semesters at a company and get paid. Roughly first work term gets you 14-16 and second gets you 18-20 per hour, which is not bad for a student job. If the company likes you enough, they could hire you on as a full time employee. There’s a lot of well known companies that are connected with the program (banks, Mozilla, Redhat, IBM, etc).

In semester 5 and 6 of year 3, I get to pick what courses to see what I want to specialize in. As of now, I’m definitely leaning towards gaming but that could change. If co-op goes well and I do get hired on full time then I’d stick with the company. If somehow I don’t get a job through co-op, I’m going to use my advanced diploma when I graduate to transfer me into third or fourth year of a Computer Science degree.

I’m quite excited for this and I can’t wait to learn all that they have to teach me. I know there is going to be some stuff I’ll learn on my own as I go along. I know that there are people here that are programmers so I’m going to enjoy picking apart your brains and learning things from all of you as well. :)

From my own experience (bsc/msc computer science, phd cryptography) the academic stuff was great for getting into jobs (sadly I am now a corporate IT whore :P)

However especially in the world of gaming I suspect academic qualifications are useful but even moreso they’ll be looking into published work/portfolio, so my only advice would be to get modding and level creating on a variety of games in your own time.

I remember doing this myself with DEU in the days of doom, sadly my atrocious aesthetics did not lend me to a career in that field :P

When I was younger, I would always mess around with the Unreal Editor but not to the extent of learning the Unreal Script so I think it’s about time I get around to that.

I plan to make games or apps just to have something to show other than a piece of paper. A portfolio would definitely set myself apart from other candidates for a job.

My school has an open source group that students and faculty members can join. They’ve made a lot of stuff there that has been used by big companes like Cern. So I’m definitely looking to join that and be able to make stuff while learning.

Courses look good, solid hands on programming. The more you can learn before the course the easier it will be and the more you will get out of it.

I’ve already learned some of the basics for C++ this summer. I’m sure I can use that towards my C programming course first semester. I can’t wait to learn everything and apply my knowledge to different things.

Either a full-time steady salary at a company developing & maintaining software for them (myself).

Or as a contractor, earning shitloads for random projects, but there certainly doesn’t seem to be a lack of them either.

Good exercise for the brain too.

I think I’m going to start off at a company then when the child process happens, possibly become a contractor so I can work from home. There’s many different ways I could go about what field I want to get into.

Are you working for a company that has a software product or are you managing the software needed for the company?